Girlfriend Diamond Reynolds: 'They treated me like I did this.'

Diamond Reynolds, the girlfriend of Philando Castile who witnessed his shooting, said that no one bothered to check his pulse—instead, officers were more concerned with reassuring the cop who killed Castile that everything would be okay (for him).

"[Other officers] pulled [the officer who shot Castile] over to the side and they began to calm him down and tell him that it was okay and he would get through this," said Reynolds during a press conference on Thursday, according to Slate.

Meanwhile, Castile was unconscious and bleeding to death in the car where he had been shot five times. Reynolds and her young daughter were removed from the vehicle, separated, and eventually taken to the police station. Officers made Reynolds feels like it was her fault—like she was responsible for what had happened to her boyfriend.

"They treated me like I did this," said Reynolds.

As Brian Doherty noted earlier, Castile was pulled over for a broken tail light. The officer issued contradictory instructions to him and Reynolds, asking them to both provide license and registration while keeping their hands in the air. Castile informed the officer that he was carrying a firearm, and reached for his wallet to produce his permit. The officer then opened fire.

There's so much wrong with all of this. A man—a black man—should not lose his life for daring to exercise his Second Amendment rights. And while the killing of Castile is by far the most galling crime committed here, the way the police treated Reynolds is also inexcusable. The cops were only capable of showing humanity toward one of their own: the officer involved in the shooting. Assuming Reynolds' account is accurate, such utter lack of empathy on the part of law enforcement—during and after the shooting—is a grave concern.

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Seriously, this place is a hive of scum of villainy that makes Mos Eisley look Disneyland, and that’s what got Staffinrun in trouble? I thought we had to at least threaten a a federal prosecutor with a woodchipper to get investigated.

For the love of Bob, do not go to PoliceOne’s FB page concerning this story. It’s unbelievable that we just celebrated a day when we declared our independence from a tyrannical monarchy but yet it’s easy for many to bootlick the boots of authority.

Mistakes are made, but it’s no longer a mistake when you keep on doing the same shit that harms people. It becomes at best carelessness and at worst, not giving a fuck.

As for,” There are some bad eggs,” comment, that’s fine and all but whenever anyone tries to do some sort of reform to punish the bad eggs or keep them off the police force, you get some sort of backlash from the FOP or their union equivalent.

Seriously, I want to go into apeshit mode whenever I hear these excuses come up.

You should ask your father to suspend the talking points for a second and have him consider the HUMAN side of police incompetence. This seems like a good case. A father was killed before his family and for what exactly? What were the police doing that was a public service? Checking out for a tail light? He’s right. Most of us couldn’t do their jobs because a lot of it demands unnecessary violence against others and worse if you are one of the good guys you have to accept it. Which makes me wonder if you’re a good guy to begin with.

True. I couldn’t be a cop because I wouldn’t pull someone over for a broken taillight. I’d pull up alongside and let the guy know, and then never give it another thought. I certainly wouldn’t shoot him over it.

My father’s father was NYPD. He was a cop defender for years. That incident in Chicago broke him. He said, “That was a straight up murder. They really will lie and cheat to keep a cold blooded murderer.” He’s coming around to feeling about the FOP/Police union the same way he feels about every other public union.

Exactly. An FBI agent takes notes on what you’re saying, the interviewee does not get to review those notes, and then that becomes the official record of the interview. If the interviewee ever tries to say something different than what is in those notes, bam, lying to the FBI, felony.

Or if the case against you falls apart but the FBI still wants its pound of flesh, the Agent just says you lied and you have no way to defend yourself. Who is the jury going to believe, the FBI agent or you?

BAM, plea bargain, a felony conviction and about 11 months in federal prison. The feds are scum.

No. Lying to the FBI in any form is a crime. This is why you never talk to them. Get a lawyer and let your lawyer talk to them. Never think you can talk your way out of something. You can’t. They are not your friends. They are evil scum there to put you in jail regardless of whether you are guilty.

There can only be a sentencing hearing if there is a conviction. And they are not very smart or good investigators. Nearly all of their convictions are gimmes where the person is dumb enough to talk to them and get conned into confessing. If you get a lawyer and don’t talk to them, chances are they will move on to someone else, provided you are not actually guilty and they can prove it via paperwork.

On the corporate side, there are broad laws that can ensnare pretty much anyone (and I know its going to come as a shock to Comey, but including people who didn’t realize what they were doing was illegal), plus lots of paper trails, plus an organization looking to save itself.

That’s why you need to insist your lawyer be there when you refuse to talk. If they show up at your door, slam it in their face and call him/her and relate what happened. It’s the best you can do when confronted with that which should be illegal, on their part. I don’t believe the Founders intended for there to be anything like an “FBI”.

The whole thing is set up so they can pick who they want to send to jail, and then manufacture the charges to justify it. The fact that Clinton agreed to this interview shows that she knew full well what the outcome was going to be. No person that actually thought she was in jeopardy and that had competent legal advice would do that.

From what I read somewhere else. Comey didn’t even speak to the officials that interviewed her. I guess the Cliffs notes version of the interview was enough for him. How’s that for an exhaustive investigation?

So, less of an interview and more of a “friendly chat.” I’d be willing to bet that they spent all of maybe 5 minutes discussing the server and the classified documents on it and spent the rest of the time just shootin’ the shit.

An acquaintance I know who works for the DA office in Cook County told us that they only “train” people with a certain IQ to be police. Basically, if you are able to calmly and rationally process incidents along with having a good moral system, then you aren’t a good candidate for the CPD

I once ended up n the bottom side of a jack boot, courtesy of the MD State Popo for being failing to make the “next word out of my mouth” = hello on my cell phone ( turns out the battery was jammed in upside down, I learned when I got my evidence bag on my way out of the station).

As I was pinned to the concrete, arm twisted behind me, the local representative of MD’s Finest chanted, “Stop! Resist! Stop! Resist!”

Blame the insistence on “diversity”. There’s a reason these things happened with less frequency back when “racism” was more accepted and not cried every time a confrontation between people of different races occurred. They used to “wash out” people who showed the wrong kind of “attitude”, usually too aggressive but also too timid, but it was considered a subjective standard that could be used to deny minorities’ employment, and was dropped. Once they got the job, the normal employment “camaraderie” took hold and the bad ones were defended by their co-workers – it happens in almost all professions. Try to get a doctor or lawyer to rat out a fellow, who is incompetent.

Not poorly trained, poorly vetted. They are trained to a high degree but if you are the type to shit your pants at the drop of a hat, that goes out the window. Blame the insistence on “diversity”. It has let in all manner of people, of all races, unfit to be in such pressure-induced situations.

Bingo. There is absolutely nothing anyone can do about racism because it is something that people carry around in their heads. There absolutely is something that can be done about criminal justice reform and punishing police perpetrators of crimes. When the media makes it only about race, then people conclude that nothing can be done and forget about it in short order. It also shits all over the memory of all the others who have died to state-sanctioned thuggery who didn’t fit the narrative.

It’s so incredibly fucked up that someone could tell a cop that they have a CCW permit and that they are currently carrying and the cop’s first response is to assume that because there’s a gun present that the civilian is a threat. The fact that someone has a CCW permit should put a cop’s mind more at ease because they had to go through more background checks and training than average. The CCW should say loudly and clearly “this person had to prove they were a law-abiding citizen before I even met him.” It’s more information than a cop might get at the outset of any traffic stop.

It’s so incredibly fucked up that someone could tell a cop that they have a CCW permit and that they are currently carrying and the cop’s first response is to assume that because there’s a gun present that the civilian is a threat.

That’s because gunz are magical totems that can cause anyone carrying one to spontaneously flip out and murder someone. Proof: the cop did exactly that. IT IS KNOWN.

There is absolutely nothing anyone can do about racism because it is something that people carry around in their heads.

Which is precisely the way the BLM crowd wants it. Not only do they get to draw sides, but they have a cause that can never really be responded to. Those aren’t things you want if you want to see things change. But, they’re certainly things you want if you’re trying to keep activists employed.

That’s actually the libertarian argument. Everyone of those little piddling bullshit laws has the potential to end up with somebody getting killed by the cops. If you really want to help cut down on people getting killed for trivial interactions with the cops, you can start by repealing some of those BS laws.

No, that’s ridiculous. The existence of piddling laws is irrelevant. You think this was seriously about a tail light? As long as there’s any law against anything?until they legalize even murder?they can accuse you of that. And if even murder is legal, they can just murder you. But at least you’d be entitled to murder them 1st.

This one is not blowing up my news feed like the CD-seller with the criminal record and pocket carry. Too soon or is it because Castile’s hispanic and the shooter Hmong and therefore does not reconcile with the SJW narrative?

Sorry, but why does it matter if Alton Sterling had a criminal record?

Am I working on the assumption that incarceration actually works to reform violent criminals or no?

I mean Whitey Bulger didn’t have a criminal history when they went to arrest him. That doesn’t make walking up to him empty handed and saying, “Whitey you’re coming with us.” a good idea.

There’s no reason to believe that the officer could or couldn’t have known/reviewed Sterling’s criminal history en route but the 911 transcripts (and possibly the officer’s arrest records) would certainly help clarify that.

Or the SJW’s realized that since this guy, by all first appearances, didn’t have a criminal record that the law and order types could latch onto (because… reasons) to disparage the victim and this seems to be the kind of case that won’t generate a lot of controversy, they can’t use it to divide and conquer. It’s hard to gin up controversy when almost everyone but the worst LEO bootlickers agree that this is a bullshit shooting.

Everyone got their BLM protest on over Jamar White when he was shot in Minneapolis earlier this year. He was a felon who had just gotten out of jail and had beaten his girlfriend. He came back when the paramedics were trying to treat her and was trying to interfere with that so she didn’t testify against him and send him back in. The cops got involved and he ended up shot during a scuffle because he was going for the cops gun (DNA evidence found a bunch of his DNA on the gun).

No one protested a bit for Chris Lollie when St Paul cops beat and tasered him for being in public.

You can ask 99% of the Jamar White protesters about Lollie and they say “Who?”

Sadly this is going to be more of a Chris Lollie deal where outrage goes away quickly because everyone agrees that this cop fucked up big time.

Only chance of it flaring up again is if when the cops try to get their buddy off with a slap on the wrist.

BLM is nothing but a prog front group. It doesn’t give a shit about police brutality. It exist to create racial hatred and discord. They only protest close cases or cases where the cop was likely right. They do this because they know that in a close case white people will generally side with the cop and blacks will generally side with the victim. In cases where the cop is clearly wrong, blacks and whites would be outraged defeating the entire purpose of BLM.

“[Other officers] pulled [the officer who shot Castile] over to the side and they began to calm him down and tell him that it was okay and he would get through this,” said Reynolds during a press conference on Thursday…

As James Gandolfini said in True Romance, “Now the first time you kill somebody, that’s the hardest. I don’t give a shit if you’re fuckin’ Wyatt Earp or Jack the Ripper. Remember that guy in Texas? The guy up in that fuckin’ tower that killed all them people? I’ll bet you green money that first little black dot he took a bead on, that was the bitch of the bunch. First one is tough, no fuckin’ foolin’. The second one… the second one ain’t no fuckin’ Mardis Gras either, but it’s better than the first one ’cause you still feel the same thing, y’know… except it’s more diluted, y’know it’s… it’s better. I threw up on the first one, you believe that? Then the third one… the third one is easy, you level right off. It’s no problem. Now… shit… now I do it just to watch their fuckin’ expression change.”

I’m not sure I follow the need to put your hands up when you’ve been stopped for a broken tail light. I can see that the steering wheel was on the wrong side of the car, did that maybe piss the cop off enough to make him all shooty?

I think the explanation is that the video was recorded with the selfie camera, which is why it was “flipped” in the original facebook stream. So any video you see where it’s “oriented properly” is actually the after-the-fact edit.

I don’t understand. I just made two videos of the same thing on my IPhone 5C, one with the camera on the screen side, one with the camera on the “back” side. Both videos have the same, “normal” right/left sense. What am I doing wrong? I don’t believe this “selfie camera” explanation. We’re used to seeing ourselves in mirrors, which *do* reverse the image. But a selfie should make us look natural, as we appear to others, but different from our own idea of how we look in a mirror.

Does the name, “Escher” have anything to do with the explanation above?

Asked at the press conference what she’d like to say to Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, Reynolds said, “I want Governor Mark Dayton to allow these people who are licensed to carry to have more rights. If we are able [to have a] license to carry ? then a police officer should not be able to gun a man down for no reason.”

That’s an interesting takeaway by this woman. Of all the things wrong with that night, to focus on the carry aspect and to specifically want that addressed.

It will create an interesting role reversal. Many of the “cops can do no wrong” types likely will change their tune when they find out being a CC holder can get you killed. The BLM and prog crowd who usually get angry when a cop shoots a black person will likely suddenly decide that it isn’t such a big deal when the victim is an evil gun owner.

The officer issued contradictory instructions to him and Reynolds, asking them to both provide license and registration while keeping their hands in the air.

IOW, procedures were followed.

Castile informed the officer that he was carrying a firearm, and reached for his wallet to produce his permit. The officer then opened fire.

The sad thing is, I’ve been told that the thing to do if carrying a weapon when stopped by a cop, is to tell them you have a weapon so that they DON’T freak out and summarily execute you when/ if they see it. Seems like you’re pretty much damned if you do, damned if you don’t. It’s almost like maybe they’re trying to make exercising your right to arm yourself for self defense purposes an instant death sentence if you encounter one of these sociopaths. Almost…

It’s almost like maybe they’re trying to make exercising your right to arm yourself for self defense purposes an instant death sentence if you encounter one of these sociopaths.

That’s exactly what it is. Remember that every cop out there is itching for an excuse to kill you. If they see a weapon then they have an excuse. They will open fire. Doesn’t matter if you have a permit, because they’ll just fill out a false report. And nothing else will happen.

The St. Anthony Police Department, the law enforcement agency that employs the officer who killed Castile, has not released a detailed account of what occurred Wednesday night. In a brief statement issued Wednesday night, the police department said “shots were fired” during the traffic stop and that “one adult male … is deceased.”

I don’t know how big St. Anthony is, but I’m guessing its police department is in waaaaaaaay over its head on this. If they even have a hint right now of the shitstorm coming, I’d be impressed.

Not sure what the law says in Minnesota, but in a lot of states you have to tell a cop who stops you if you have a gun. So it might be fair to say that he was killed for complying with both the law and the requests of the police.

What makes it really egregious is that they were telling him that while no one provided aid to the man bleeding to death in the car. Sure, that’s what they are going to say to him and it’s not the worst thing in the world. But they had more concern for that asshole’s feelings than the life of the guy who got shot.

The fact that this man had a concealed carry permit will relegate this case to being uninteresting to the media and this story will be buried quickly.

Well, every story is buried quickly under the new “Cause for Outrage”. I think this will get a least a weekend of rumination about how “guns cause all conflict” and this BLACK MAN* is dead because of the NRA convincing people they should play Cowboy.

they will blame the “mindset” perpetuated by gunowners for the death of this individual. Think pieces will be written, tweets will be tweeted, and each side will stew in self-righteousness. Then something else will come along and everyone will forget this ever happened.

Every time I see one of these cases, i wonder why the assclown involved was a cop in the first place. You don’t pump six rounds into some guy because you are thinking clearly. You do it because you are scared out of your mind and completely panic. Who on earth would want to have a job where you go to work terrified every day?

Who on earth would want to have a job where you go to work terrified every day?

They aren’t terrified every day. Just the days when someone doesn’t immediately obey contradictory commands. But then again the point of issuing contradictory commands is to have an excuse to use deadly force. That’s why most people sign up to be cops, you know. To kill people. Find a bar where cops hang out after work and listen to their drunk-talk. It’s all about wanting to kill people, and looking up to those cops who have had the opportunity. The killers are the heroes of the department.

You are wrong. They are terrified. This guy didn’t do this calmly. He did it because he was terrified and thought Castille was going to kill him. If he was some psycho killer, he would have killed someone who was alone where there were no witnesses not done it in front of his girlfriend.

And their drunk talk is a lot of bullshit. Those dumb motherfuckers would piss their pants when confronted with actual danger. you are confusing bravado with reality.

Look at how the the cops treat a stolen car, versus how they treat some kid with a dimebag or driving with an expired tag. When an actual crime happens, they will get around to it in an hour so to take a statement, and if you’re lucky, they will find find some dumbass car thief in a few months. Drive around with an expired tag or expired taillight, and the cops are all over your ass. Actual criminals are scary.

there’s no “war on stolen cars” to puff their chests over as there is with the evil scourge of drugs. At some point, sane people have to question those who pass all the laws cops are then charged with enforcing. When you maximize the contact between officer and citizen, you also raise the odds that one of those encounters will go wrong.

The problem is that finding stolen cars doesn’t help the budget, but speeding fines and busted taillights do. No cop is getting paid time and a half busting a car thieves, but busted taillights are *Ka-Ching*. Take the traffic fines, and dump them into a general state education fund and watch all the speed traps disappear.

“sarcasmic” thinks he knows all about what cops are like because he overheard them spouting bullshit one night in the bar he worked at. These are macho young men, who talk big, when away from the job, but are completely different when they are on duty. I know, I was one. There are no more “psycopaths” in police work than in any other field, and they used to be weeded out, to the best of the departments’ abilities, until it became “racist” to cull future officers because they had a bad attitude. The use of such a subjective criterion was halted, and we get the types you see on the street, today, and it is frequently the white cops that slip by that old standard.

There are extremely few legitimate psychopaths in the world; I don’t think this cop intended to kill somebody last night.

But he was definitely terrified of a routine “broken tail light” traffic stop. He issued the contradictory commands because he was scared and not thinking clearly. The victim pointing out he had a gun — probably thinking the cop wouldn’t be surprised if it was discovered — only heightened the terror.

he was definitely terrified of a routine “broken tail light” traffic stop

Probably thanks in no small part to all the “War on Cops” horseshit. If I was convinced through training and propaganda that anyone I encounter on any given day may try to kill me at any moment, I’d probably be a little jumpy too.

We should probably just drop the concept of professional police and rely on the militia to maintain order. Keep detectives around in the employee of the prosecutors, but acknowledge that they are only there to clean up messes.

“I don’t think this cop intended to kill somebody last night.” Allow me to disagree: When you point a gun at someone and repeatedly pull the trigger, and then make no effort to save the life, I’d say you intended to kill someone!

Considering that we have way too many cops in this country and many of the cops we do have are utterly unsuited for the job, I think a national moratorium on the hiring of additional law enforcement is a pretty reasonable idea. Lets sort out the mess we have right now before we bring in more cops and risk making it worse.

Sure. We can even have these killer-cops pushing the Fire button on the drones at the ISIS wedding party. I understand normal pilots feel funny about killing the innocent kids, but these guys should do fine.

He wasn’t even exercising his 2nd Amendment rights. He was merely informing the police that he possessed a weapon so that, in the event he is searched (because, you know, driving while black), there wouldn’t be a misinterpretation and he’d end up dead.

And that is what got him killed. I hate to say it but the answer to this situation is he should have put the gun in the center console of the car and never told the cop a damned thing. Had he done that, the cop would have probably just written him a ticket and that would have been it.

The lesson of this incident is sadly the same as it is for all of these things; deal with the police as little as possible and tell them as little as possible when you have to.

My aunt is a CC holder and she was telling me that they teach you to tell any cop that you run into about your license and if you have a weapon on you.

She said she has had one encounter where the cop thanked her and asked her where in the car it was and then just went on with the traffic stop. She also said she had a traffic stop where the cop got real tense and nervous and scared her. That cop made her exit the car and then “secured” the weapon before he gave her a speeding ticket.

I’ll have to ask her what she thinks now.

But like someone said above, the very fact that you have a CC should make you much more relaxed if you are a cop because we train/background check the shit out of our CC holders in Minnesoda. If you have one, you are much more law abiding than the gen pop.

Because it was a profile stop. In all of my life as a respectable white person, I have never seen a passenger in a pulled over car asked for their ID. He pulled them over because they were black. He figured he would search them, use the “within reach” exception to look through the driver and passenger areas of the car and run their names and see if he got lucky and found drugs or an outstanding warrant or if nothing else write a ticket to meet his quota for the month.

When I was younger, my buddy and I were driving back from salmon fishing in Kewaunee, WI and in Green Bay got pulled over by a cop. Somehow the cop managed to pick us out of a pack of cars as the only ones worth writing a ticket for (hint we had MN plates).

The cop looked like he was 14 years old. It was so tempting to ask him if his momma knew he was playing cop today.

He asked my buddy – the passenger – for his ID too. One of those situations where we weren’t sure if it was legal or not, and we also knew that if we refused Officer Fuckhead was going to keep us there for hours while he fucked with us. So my buddy gave his ID over and we got the ticket.

But yeah, we were youngish but we still probably qualified as respectable white folk.

Laws change based on what state you are in. What’s so hard about letting the cop know who you are? Being uncooperative is a sure-fire way to get the worst treatment, possible. Being cooperative is the best way to get things over with, quickly. It is, really, as simple as that.

I’m thinking about starting a GoFundMe to develop taillights made out of bulletproof glass and hardwired with LED lights and a redundant power system. This thing could save lives and would be very popular with minorities as aftermarket car accessories.

The cop can just make it up. One of the best things we could do in this country would be to get rid of moving violations altogether. I would even agree to speed cameras if it came with saying cops no longer had the authority to pull someone over for a traffic violation.

Simple solution to all of this. Stop using cops as revenue collectors. Get rid of all the bullshit minor infractions designed to steal money from the people and you eliminate a good chunk of the police interactions, thus lowering the chances of being shot.

The officer definitely had considerable reasons to shoot this wild animal to death. First, a broken tail light is certain indication the driver has clear intent on murdering dozens of people when he gets out of the car. Studies by the FBI, CIA, DEA, etc have shown this to be true for decades. Secondly, there is nothing wrong with issuing contradictory instructions by our beloved police officials. They have trained hard for months, if not years, to do this as to ensure their safety, their partner’s safety and the safety of the proletariat. Having a suspect go through rigorous, meaningless and really stupid drills is the best way to make sure the suspect will do as his told when he is told. Thirdly, ordering the suspect to keep his hands in the air and simultaneously give his license and registration is an easy task. A two year old could do this in his sleep. So why couldn’t the suspect, a grown man no less, do this simple task? Lastly, we all know criminals always carry their firearms in their wallets. It is the perfect place to conceal a gun. One only has to examine the statistical evidence of how many cops get shot daily when violent criminals reach into their wallets and shoot police officers. There can be no doubt this is a “good shooting,” and the wise and brave police officer will be exhonerated. (SP) God Bless Amerika.